Tall ship under sail
More on sailing on a tall ship
Images of a tall ship under sail whilst sailing north, on the western edge of the Bay of Biscay, in March 2013.
Just as the best view of the Liverpool seafront is from the opposite side of the River Mersey, so the true grandeur of a tall sailing ship can only be really appreciated when you are not on it. From the Pierhead you see Birkenhead, from a tall ship you see the sea.
On some of the other posts I have attempted to give an impression of what it’s like to be sailing on a tall ship; the way it seems to effortlessly cope with aggressive and threatening waves; how the sails take the power of nature and convert it into forward motion; how the evolution of the sails shows the ingenuity and inventiveness of past generations of seamen; and this you experience whilst standing on the deck as the vessel moves through the water.
I hope that the images I’ve added to my posts (so far) have given a bit of an impression of what is like actually being on the deck of a sailing ship.
When we were passing the western edge of the Bay of Biscay, on an incredibly calm, warm and sunny day, we were given the opportunity to get a view of the ship from a distance, with nothing (no land or any other vessels) in sight.
By that time the ship was becoming a little battered. The spanker, the sail at the back of the ship, was not set as the boom had been damaged in a gale a few days earlier. That does detract (in a very slight way) from the full grandeur of a tall ship but I hope the pictures in the slideshow below capture something of what makes them romantic to many.
